IPCC scientist admits Glaciergate was about influencing governments

In a stunning admission, the scientist responsible for publishing the part of the 2007 IPCC report on global warming in Asia says he knew the evidence for the disappearing Himalayan Glacier was suspect but allowed it into the report in order to put pressure on governments to take action.

This story is getting huge play in Great Britain - not so much here in America. David Rose of the Daily Mail pens this piece:

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report's chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.'

It turns out that the prediction about Himalayan glaciers disappearing by 2035 was based on two interviews with an obscure Indian scientist and a World Wildlife Federation's report - that botched the math in figuring glacier shrinkage:

The WWF article also contained a basic error in its arithmetic. A claim that one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres - the authors had divided the total loss measured over 121 years by 21, not 121.

Money quote from the article: "In fact, the 2035 melting date seems to have been plucked from thin air."

It's not like reputable scientists didn't try to warn off the IPCC about this ridiculous assertion about Himalayan glaciers. Several scientists wrote to Lal and his group pointing out that the statement had not been peer reviewed and was based on bogus data. Lal's group ignored or dismissed all such claims.

Once again, we have clear evidence that the IPCC report from 2007 from which all recommendations on what to do about climate change flows, is seriously flawed not only in fact, but in the way it was compiled as well. The scientists went against their own guidelines time and time again to include information that was not properly vetted. Nor did they follow their own rules about including valid dissents from the majority.

IPCC Chairman Dr Pachauri - under a cloud as a result of conflict of interest charges - dismissed an Indian government study last year refuting the glacier evidence as "voodoo science." And why not? Pachauri has numerous business interests in India getting rich off the claim about Himalayan glaciers.

This is the most humiliating news yet for the IPCC. One wonders how much longer the chairman - and perhaps the organization itself - can survive given all the recent revelations.

In a stunning admission, the scientist responsible for publishing the part of the 2007 IPCC report on global warming in Asia says he knew the evidence for the disappearing Himalayan Glacier was suspect but allowed it into the report in order to put pressure on governments to take action.

This story is getting huge play in Great Britain - not so much here in America. David Rose of the Daily Mail pens this piece:

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report's chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.'

It turns out that the prediction about Himalayan glaciers disappearing by 2035 was based on two interviews with an obscure Indian scientist and a World Wildlife Federation's report - that botched the math in figuring glacier shrinkage:

The WWF article also contained a basic error in its arithmetic. A claim that one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres - the authors had divided the total loss measured over 121 years by 21, not 121.

Money quote from the article: "In fact, the 2035 melting date seems to have been plucked from thin air."

It's not like reputable scientists didn't try to warn off the IPCC about this ridiculous assertion about Himalayan glaciers. Several scientists wrote to Lal and his group pointing out that the statement had not been peer reviewed and was based on bogus data. Lal's group ignored or dismissed all such claims.

Once again, we have clear evidence that the IPCC report from 2007 from which all recommendations on what to do about climate change flows, is seriously flawed not only in fact, but in the way it was compiled as well. The scientists went against their own guidelines time and time again to include information that was not properly vetted. Nor did they follow their own rules about including valid dissents from the majority.

IPCC Chairman Dr Pachauri - under a cloud as a result of conflict of interest charges - dismissed an Indian government study last year refuting the glacier evidence as "voodoo science." And why not? Pachauri has numerous business interests in India getting rich off the claim about Himalayan glaciers.

This is the most humiliating news yet for the IPCC. One wonders how much longer the chairman - and perhaps the organization itself - can survive given all the recent revelations.